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New Mexico Basketball: Ball Dawgs Classic Preview
The Lobos get things started with the Toledo Rockets late Tuesday night.
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The Lobos head on the road for a three-game stand in Feast Week Multi-team event, The Ball Dawgs Classic.
WHO: New Mexico (2-1, 0-0 in the MWC) vs. Toledo (3-0, 0-0 in the MAC), Rice (1-2, 0-0 in AAC) & Pepperdine (3-2, 0-0 in WCC)
WHEN: Tuesday November 21st-Friday November 24th
WHERE: The Dollar Loan Center, Henderson, NV
STREAM: FLO Hoops ($)
It’s that time of year folks, with the holidays heavily upon us college basketball fans are gearing up for maybe their favorite time of year not named March Madness, Feast Week.
The second to last week in November always provides quality basketball matchups in a variety of venues and cities almost daily. For the New Mexico Lobos that means picking up shop and making the Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, NV their home for the holiday “break”.
This comes after the Lobos were taken down to the wire in their lone game of week two of the college basketball season by UT Arlington. New Mexico looked out of sorts that game and let foul trouble combined with nearly zero post defense create a nail biter in the Pit.
In his post-game interview Thursday night, Head Coach Richard Pitino acknowledged a lack of chemistry as one of the teams biggest issues at the moment.
“We know our best basketball is ahead of us. We’ve dealt with so many injuries, we’ve dealt with Nelly (Junior-Joseph) missing four crucial months of practice, we just have to find a way. This team will progress as the season goes on with so many new guys.” said Coach Pitino
“Although I am excited about the future of this team and program. We have eight new players and when you take a veteran like Jaelen House out, we’ll now you got a lot of new guys on the court. And we are not going to be perfect right now. You have to learn from every opportunity you get.”
Now they’ll gear up and head west for three games in four days against MAC title hopefuls Toledo, AAC newcomers Rice and Lorenzo Romar’s Pepperdine Waves. It’s a tough task, but aside for the chance to grab some quality wins over top-175 KenPom ranked teams. It’s a chance for this Lobo squad to find more team chemistry before a very tough homestand the following week.
Team previews below
Larry Muniz covers college basketball as a writer for Mountain West Wire and WAC Hoops Digest. Also as a co-host of the college basketball podcast “Hoops Talk W/Jay & Larry”. He is also a USWBA Member.